Slashdot Mirror

I've used XFce on everything from a 486 to a P-4. It'll be snappy no mattery where you run it. It's not too hard to get used to, and almost never crashes.

If you want even less resource consumption, go for VTWM. I've also used it on everything from a 486 to a P-4, and it's even faster than XFce, and not too much more difficult to figure out. We use it at the Earlham College CS department on our Red Hat Linux P-4 clients, and it really flies.

Ho hum. Another /.'ing. Here's a mirror of of the French, and one for the Babelfish-translated English.

Ho hum. Another /.'ing. Here's a mirror of of the French, and one for the Babelfish-translated English.

These mirrors are getting hammered, so here's another one.

Poke around in your college's IT and CS departments. I too am a first-year student (at Earlham College), and have an internship with the IT department, and a job as a sysadmin (or whatever we decide to call ourselves) with the CS department.

In the end, job/internship experience you can put on your resume is probably going to be more useful than a college degree, although the latter might put in a better position for employers who look more at pieces of paper than experience.

Poke around in your college's IT and CS departments. I too am a first-year student (at Earlham College), and have an internship with the IT department, and a job as a sysadmin (or whatever we decide to call ourselves) with the CS department.

In the end, job/internship experience you can put on your resume is probably going to be more useful than a college degree, although the latter might put in a better position for employers who look more at pieces of paper than experience.

It really depends where you go. Where I am, at Earlham College, I've learned more about sysadmining since I got here than at any other time.

The entire CS department's network is student-run, and being an admin there has taught me far more than any class could have taught me. I also have an internship with the computing center, for which I work on testing out LDAP authentication. Small schools tend to provide more opportunities like that, because it allows direct communication between professors and students, and staff and students.

It really depends where you go. Where I am, at Earlham College, I've learned more about sysadmining since I got here than at any other time.

The entire CS department's network is student-run, and being an admin there has taught me far more than any class could have taught me. I also have an internship with the computing center, for which I work on testing out LDAP authentication. Small schools tend to provide more opportunities like that, because it allows direct communication between professors and students, and staff and students.

This is somewhat off-topic, but I go to the college at which Peter Suber teaches. I have yet to take a course from him, but I have read many of his writings. His website has interesting stuff not only on copyright law but also on computer science and philosophy.

Reminds me of Nomic.

PLoS is one of the leading initiatives for open access to science. For the other major program, see the Budapest Open Access Initiative and its FAQ. PLoS supports BOAI and vice versa.

For breaking news on these issues see the FOS News blog. (FOS stands for Free Online Scholarship.)

Peter

PLoS is one of the leading initiatives for open access to science. For the other major program, see the Budapest Open Access Initiative and its FAQ. PLoS supports BOAI and vice versa.

For breaking news on these issues see the FOS News blog. (FOS stands for Free Online Scholarship.)

Peter

Yet another /.'ing. Mirrors up at Earlham College and at UW-Madison.

Be warned that I am planning on taking down the UW-Madison server for repairs and upgrades later tonight, so Earlham is probably your best bet.

Since the site appears to be getting kind of slow, and also seems to be a personally-hosted site, I have set up mirrors here (courtesy of Earlham College) and here (courtesy of UW-Madison).

Since the site appears to be getting kind of slow, and also seems to be a personally-hosted site, I have set up mirrors here (courtesy of Earlham College) and here (courtesy of UW-Madison).

I've got mirrors up at Earlham College and UW-Madison. No movies, but pictures are in.

Yet another page /.'d. I have mirrors up here and here. I have converted to PDF format to keep the number of files I have to deal with at a minimum.

Since things seem to be getting bogged down on Hardware Analysis's end, here are two mirrors:

1. Earlham College

2. UW-Madison

These are in PDF format, which I converted from the printable HTML provided on the website. It is missing one eye-candy picture of a hard-drive's interior.

I've got mirrors up at my Earlham website and at my UW-Madison website.

I wouldn't mind having a shortwave card in my computer. I'm at college, so theoretically I have an "always-on" connection, but Earlham College only has a single T1 for 1200 students, so streaming anything isn't worth it.

Since the other link doesn't seem to be working, try this one from my website.

Since it seems like OWAPS is being Slashdotted, I have set up a mirror here.

I also have an essay on that, albeit much shorter. It was written for a scholarship, which I didn't get, but I do feel I learned a lot.

It is available here: Mirror #1 and here Mirror #2 Both copies are the same, but the latter site has more bandwidth.

Check out the Free Online Scholarship Newletter for very interesting discussions about "how the internet is transforming scholarly research and publications." Also James Morrison's interview with this project's founder, the net-savvy philosopher Peter Suber.

Your delusion that someone must be either an absolutist or a total moral relativist is revealing.

Can you explain how it could be any other way? Either morals are fixed and are thus absolute, or they can change and are thus relative. Saying they are both is violating the Principle of Non-Contradiction.

Rest assured, I know, and I understand.

Namely peace and prosperity. Commerce and communication have essentially brought us these. People who aren't hungry and have jobs (Hmm?) tend not to fight each other.

I graduated from Earlham, a Liberal Arts College, with a computer science major in 1998. I've been involved in managing a website development company since then. I've found the required broad liberal arts base
very useful in the real world. I came out equipped with writing skills and the ability work well with groups of people, not just computers. I can't say I felt everything was 100% relevent, but I know CS at liberal arts schools has produced some other notable web ventures: Slashdot and PerlMonks come to mind.

Sounds a lot like Peter Suber's Nomic:

Nomic is a game I invented in 1982. It's a game in which changing the rules is a move. The Initial Set of rules does little more than regulate the rule-changing process.

Google to the rescue: A Crash Course in the Mathematics Of Infinite Sets.

Yes, it does, and yes, you're absolutely right, the game could change so that in the future it's no longer true that all the rules are changeable. Nomic could turn into a game of chess, even.

It's related to an interesting philosophical question: can an omnipotent being revoke his own omnipotence? That is, is he condemned to remain "omnipotent" forever, in which case he is not truly omnipotent? Or can he will himself to no longer be omnipotent--in which case, perhaps he truly is omnipotent at the moment, but there is no guarantee he will be so in the future.

If you're interested in this sort of question, I recommend The Paradox of Self-Amendment: A Study of Law, Logic, Omnipotence, and Change by Peter Suber, inventor of Nomic.

You're right that there are more real numbers than integers, but your proof is way off.

There are also an infinite number of rational numbers between any two integers, yet the sets Z(the integers) and R (the rationals) have the same cardinality.

Here's an explanation .

The Debian management is a complete mess for example...

In the old days we had a benevolent dictator (Bruce), and it worked pretty well. Eventually he got tired of getting abused, and we had project leader elections.

Now, a few project leaders later, we got a Debian constitution which makes sure that:

• Every single proposal is subject to endless flaming...
• It takes ages to get something approved...
• We get a new release once every couple of years.
• We get plenty of threads and discussions about how to change the constitution, or what's the best way to count votes.
• We got plenty of pompous titles. Release manager. Delegates. Secretaries. Etc..

Oh, and that's not it. The packaging manual is also subject to voting...

The sad part is that only a few vocal people within Debian drove the project where it stands now. These people should play nomic and let the developpers do their jobs.

Along those lines, people may find Nomic interesting, a game where the participants make up the rules as they go along. You can find information here and here.

And let's not forget that Gnutella allows all kinds of information to be spread across the Internet. Not only illegal MP3s, but other illegal and immoral content - pornography, terrorist manifestos, race-hate propaganda and anti-Christian bigotry. How are we supposed to eradicate these blights when they are available over a distributed network of servers which is practically impossible to shut down?
-Anonymous Coward

I would like to point out that such "immoral content" is also often protected free speech, at least in the US. Whether AC lives there, or in another nation with reasonable protections for speech, or someplace completely different, the principles remain true. I'm no more thrilled than the next person by bigotry, hate propaganda, terrorism, or porn. However, like many people, I place a high value on my freedom to speak, and I recognize that I only have such a freedom when it is granted to those who may disagree with me. More than likely, Anonymous Coward and I disagree on a great many things. Quite possibly, I think many of AC's positions are dangerous or immoral, because like most people we probably have different value systems. Despite any such disagreement, I would be willing to defend AC's right to give voice to his positions.

If AC wishes to "eradicate these blights", then the best weapon at his disposal is, quite simply, to exercise his freedom of speech against them. Hate won't go away just because we forbid people to speak of it, but if we can show that the hate is unfounded we might get somewhere. Christians, or other groups, aren't going to make the rest of us like them any better by telling us we can't express opinions and beliefs that they may find immoral, though they might convince us we were wrong if they argued well. (No, I don't dislike Christians. In fact, some of my best friends feel called to the ministry in Christian denominations.) Terrorists aren't going to go away because they can't speak. The nature of terrorism creates an audience for what the terrorists have to say. Content that is already illegal is just that - already illegal.

To my eye, Gnutella is nothing more or less than a tool to facilitate the exercise of two cherished American freedoms - the right to free speech, and the right to free assembly. All the more so precisely because it allows the transfer of more than just one type of data. Such software enables people to describe what they are offering to say to the world, and to find other people who have something to say which interests them. It then creates a channel over which two parties can communicate, and exchanges information that both parties have expressed a desire to exchange. If that communication is illegal in content, it is no more the fault of the tool than it would be the fault of my computer if I were to post a libelous web site. We do not forbid pen and paper, nor the printing press, simply because they can serve as a vehicle libel, plagiarism, harassment, criminal threatening, conspiracy, or a host of other undesirable or immoral activities. Neither should we forbid the use or creation of other communications technologies simply because they can be put to illegal uses. If Gnutella is designed to give me a printing press that nobody can dismantle or take away, so much the better.


-Andrew C. Dingman
http://dingman.student.earlham.edu/
e-mail: above-URL/?page=contact

"They that give up liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"
-Benjamin Franklin

And let's not forget that Gnutella allows all kinds of information to be spread across the Internet. Not only illegal MP3s, but other illegal and immoral content - pornography, terrorist manifestos, race-hate propaganda and anti-Christian bigotry. How are we supposed to eradicate these blights when they are available over a distributed network of servers which is practically impossible to shut down?
-Anonymous Coward

I would like to point out that such "immoral content" is also often protected free speech, at least in the US. Whether AC lives there, or in another nation with reasonable protections for speech, or someplace completely different, the principles remain true. I'm no more thrilled than the next person by bigotry, hate propaganda, terrorism, or porn. However, like many people, I place a high value on my freedom to speak, and I recognize that I only have such a freedom when it is granted to those who may disagree with me. More than likely, Anonymous Coward and I disagree on a great many things. Quite possibly, I think many of AC's positions are dangerous or immoral, because like most people we probably have different value systems. Despite any such disagreement, I would be willing to defend AC's right to give voice to his positions.

If AC wishes to "eradicate these blights", then the best weapon at his disposal is, quite simply, to exercise his freedom of speech against them. Hate won't go away just because we forbid people to speak of it, but if we can show that the hate is unfounded we might get somewhere. Christians, or other groups, aren't going to make the rest of us like them any better by telling us we can't express opinions and beliefs that they may find immoral, though they might convince us we were wrong if they argued well. (No, I don't dislike Christians. In fact, some of my best friends feel called to the ministry in Christian denominations.) Terrorists aren't going to go away because they can't speak. The nature of terrorism creates an audience for what the terrorists have to say. Content that is already illegal is just that - already illegal.

To my eye, Gnutella is nothing more or less than a tool to facilitate the exercise of two cherished American freedoms - the right to free speech, and the right to free assembly. All the more so precisely because it allows the transfer of more than just one type of data. Such software enables people to describe what they are offering to say to the world, and to find other people who have something to say which interests them. It then creates a channel over which two parties can communicate, and exchanges information that both parties have expressed a desire to exchange. If that communication is illegal in content, it is no more the fault of the tool than it would be the fault of my computer if I were to post a libelous web site. We do not forbid pen and paper, nor the printing press, simply because they can serve as a vehicle libel, plagiarism, harassment, criminal threatening, conspiracy, or a host of other undesirable or immoral activities. Neither should we forbid the use or creation of other communications technologies simply because they can be put to illegal uses. If Gnutella is designed to give me a printing press that nobody can dismantle or take away, so much the better.


-Andrew C. Dingman
http://dingman.student.earlham.edu/
e-mail: above-URL/?page=contact

"They that give up liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"
-Benjamin Franklin

From what I saw is he was simply going to attempt to build a link from his pc to the n64. I saw nothing about him attempting to make linux run on the n64, in fact, after *gasp* reading the article, he says it was impracticle to do it, with only 4mb of ram, no hd, no keyboard, etc. He hasn't even started to build the cable, from what I've seen.

You can read about some of the other neat stuff that was done (or at least started) in the course on the course homepage.

In general, you should check out the Computer Science program at Earlham College if you're looking for a great, open-minded, small liberal arts school to study CS and all the related topics at an undergraduate level.

You can read about some of the other neat stuff that was done (or at least started) in the course on the course homepage.

In general, you should check out the Computer Science program at Earlham College if you're looking for a great, open-minded, small liberal arts school to study CS and all the related topics at an undergraduate level.

You can read about some of the other neat stuff that was done (or at least started) in the course on the course homepage.

In general, you should check out the Computer Science program at Earlham College if you're looking for a great, open-minded, small liberal arts school to study CS and all the related topics at an undergraduate level.

Pre-Pentium chips had plenty of bugs (oops...errata) as well check them out here.

You are young and have a lot to learn. Find whatever it is that you find most difficult and meet that straight on. The earlier the better. If you are bad at math, take tough math classes. If you are bad at English, take tough English classes. The same goes for schools. Go to the toughest/best school you can get into. As for the type of school, pick one that gives you a rounded, balanced education. Any university is good, but liberal arts colleges are best. For example, Earlham College is excellent. Good luck.

Yes, computers will design other computers, as it has already been proven, but it will be much more than seventy years before they are able to genetically generate something equal to the human brain. Consider this, if a genetic evolution were to be simulated for the human brain: approximately 1 billion humans participated in the evolution of humanity as we know it (this is a very conservative estimate of 400 generations with an average of 2.5 million people participating). And humans have generally 15 billion neurons. By another conservative estimate, they think along the lines of 1/100 of a second; they don't use their entire brains during this time, but simulation software couldn't figure this out (and neither can we). Many neurons (or so I am told) connect in no fewer than 10000 places; thus they must be represented by at least 14 bits. If this is all multiplied out, we must sample 15 million trillion neurons every 1/100 of a second (each connecting at least 100 others, since not all connect to very many others), or 0.15 trillion trillion member accesses per second to conquer the problem in the aforementioned 70 years, if we are able to split up the hierarchy of evolution to parallelze all 1 billion lives into life spans of 70 years, and considering that any action of a human may influence its life, death, and ability to create offspring. To hold all this, we might need 210 billion trillion bits, or 26.25 billion trillion bytes. And that is merely the very last piece of evolution, a second compared to the billion years that got us here.

That shows some very fuzzy reckoning of how hard such a simulation problem would be to do with todays technology. Even with quantum states, the numbers are on the order of a mole (!)

Somewhat more irrelevant: I feel that even tough the problem is daunting, we need to try it; I think that humans are de-evolving as a result of modern medicine; genetic mutations are piling upon out human genotype; so what if machines replace us? We can make them better than us.

Yeah, I was going to point out that this was just Nomic all over again, dressed up for a popular audience. I think it's a cute idea---I particularly like how they intend to apply for nation status once they hit 5m people---but it's going to suffer from all the traditional problems of Nomic. Namely, that with no existence except online, there really isn't much to legislate about; and more importantly, even if there is some sort of legislation, there's no way to enforce it! In a Nomic, that's okay, because there's generally a ``spirit of the game'' motivating people not to break the rules, but when it's couched as an actual nation, it's not going to work so well....